Borrow, print and tax -- Healthcare Utopia

The ability of the government to tax is the only thing backing government spending. We aren't producing enough to back our spending. This is like me being laid off, but increasing the amount I spend -- it will eventualy lead to bankruptcy and loss of credit worthiness.

When we gave government the ability to tax income with no limits, we cleared the way for our downfall. At one time, the government was limited regarding the amount of taxes it could collect, and this limited government's power, but now they can spend until we're no longer able to borrow or print anymore money, but before we get to that point government will increase taxes as a way to show our lenders we're good for the money. Government generates revenue by taking our money, and as long as we have money they can take, they will borrow, print and spend.

I'm saving the links to articles written by moderate statist Republicans who are calling for cooperation regarding the healthcare reform efforts in congress which are championed and led by the Obama administration. These moderates believe that Republicans should be assisting to craft healthcare legislation rather than simply resisting the current bills.

When this monstrosity of healthcare reform reveals its true cost, I'm going to go back to the articles written by these moderates to compare what they are saying then with what they are saying now. Nothing the Republicans propose now as a means to compromise, even if it's accepted, will have any effect on the outcome of healthcare reform being pushed through by the Democrats. The small compromises/amendments being proposed are low leverage, and they address symptomatic problems with symptomatic solutions.

The moderate statists are eager to join the healthcare reform effort out of fear of being seen as obstacles to change -- they will accept a certain amount of statism -- government control of healthcare -- if they can get a few low leverage amendments through which show that they are helping the reform cause. The progressive healthcare reform movement is about government control of healthcare and everything healthcare touches, which includes capitalism, lifestyles and individual liberty. The free market will have no influence on healthcare, regardless of which low leverage amendments are accepted. 

Ostensibly free citizens will be required to buy healthcare insurance against their wills. It won't matter if everyone is given an option of which policy they buy, all policies will be regulated by government. Government will regulate healthcare insurance, healthcare delivery and the healthcare choices of each individual. When costs explode, and are revealed, after ten to fifteen years, America will be in a financial meltdown like we've never experienced. Goodbye, dear billion, we barely knew you -- welcome trillion! Trillions in debt, we'll have no way to pay for it all. The government will raise taxes as much as they can without killing the goose laying golden eggs. Capitalism will be a memory. Finally, the government will have tamed the free market, and politicians will be in full control of the economy.

Every failure of healthcare reform will be blamed on private players who are not cooperating, so regulations will have to increase so that social engineers have the power to make this plan work. When costs explode, our lifestyle choices will be severely limited, as will be our access to healthcare. Everything than can be taxed, will be taxed -- we'll be nudged into government compliance -- and if nudging doesn't work, we'll be slammed into compliance. The healthcare reform plan will work, no matter what the government has to do to make it work -- the government will not admit defeat and go back to free market solutions. Defeat would be fatal to our present statist government. Success of healthcare reform will destroy what's left of the free market.

The only hope we have is that the coming elections change the makeup of government so that representatives work hard to dismantle what the progressives are now putting in place, but this is not comforting. The Republicans, even when in power, have not proven to be revolutionaries for limited government. We need revolutionaries, not spineless moderate statists.

Between libertarians and moderates

To add to my previous posts talking about the present political designations and the relationships between them, there is an uneasy kinship between moderates and libertarians, especially if you look at moderates, as I do, as a form of liberalism -- or perhaps a combination of conservative wallet and liberal heart. Maybe a moderate is merely an anal retentive liberal, I'm not sure, but they definitely hold modern, and some classical, liberal views. It's the mixture of statism/modern liberalism, conservatism and classic liberalism that I have problems with -- what kind of concoction is it and what are its effects?

Peter Orvetti wrote about this, and I picked it up from The Libertarian Republican blog -- it was oginally written at www.LibertyForAll.net. First he talks about the echo chambers in leftist blogs and in libertarian blogs, and I suppose he means any other blogs which are preaching to the choir, and he also warns against the use of terms like "statist", and references to writers like Rothbard and Mises -- all the things I obviously do wrong here -- because most people don't understand the terms or get the references. I tend to think introducing people to these concepts and writers is a good thing, but I get his point -- many people won't wade through all the esoteric stuff, they just want pragmatic issues and regular talk about common politics, if they even have an interest in politics. The question Orvetti asks is -- Can the libertarian movement welcome "moderates"? -- the quotation marks are Orvetti's. I ask another question -- Do moderates want to be a part of the libertarian movement? 

Orvetti writes about moderate libertarians:

This breed of libertarian does not seek the abolition of government, but believes that local government is best, as it is closest to the people impacted, and carries the fewest layers of bureaucracy. He believes there is a difference between the notion that a goal is a good one, and the insistence that the government must assert responsibility for achieving that goal. He concedes that government can and has been a positive factor in the lives of many, but insists on examining whether a non-governmental solution could work better. He believes any government effort, no matter how well-intended, must be considered in light of the unwilling person forced to fund it.

It's sort of a moderate "thang" to always condition their views on government with the understanding that government can do some things well. I'm not sure what Orvetti means by "abolition of government", but most libertarians don't call for the abolition of government, so that's somewhat of a strawman to make the moderates look more reasonable and sane, I suppose. I agree that private solutions should always be looked at first, though, so, this we can agree on.

Orvetti goes on to write:

But this libertarian differs from her purist peers. She accepts that government, like the poor, we will always have with us. She has no practical objection to things like government roads and parks, and is concerned by what would happen to the desperate if the “safety net” should completely disappear. It is her goal to make libertarian ideals achievable within the realities of the present day, by working to keep government as uninvasive and as local as possible, and prefers to focus on the expansion of freedoms rather than the contraction of the state — while bearing in mind that the two go hand-in-hand.

Herein lies the rub. Why is it inevitable that government has to provide the safety net. If the libertarian is always looking for private solutions first, why not defend the principle of non-coercion by developing private means of voluntary charity and creative insurance arrangements to deal with safety nets?

I much prefer the thinker that Orvetti describes to a progressive, but I have to wonder why the moderate has to keep "her" link to state intervention? It always appears to be a capitulation I can't trust. I feel as if I'm being "sold" through a tactic of acknowledging the libertarian principles, but then comes all the stuff on the "other hand".

Like the politican who tells his constituents that they are correct in not trusting the government to run healthcare, and that the proposal from congress is awful, but, on the "other hand" doing nothing is not an option, and since the progressives are in power and a bill is going to be passed, then the politician has to try to compromise and do his/her best to curtail the awfulness of the bill, so on and so forth -- then the politician capitulates and the state grows in power and rolls over the moderate politician on the way to an extreme takeover. At this point you can't distinguish the moderate from the progressive because they are now a part of running healthcare, acting as if there was never a disagreement in philosophy. The public is patronized and conned once again.

To me it's not a matter of whether the libertarian movement will accept moderates, it's will the moderates accept the libertarian principles when it comes to non-intervention, non-coercion, free markets, private charities, individual rights and the like. If moderates think that libertarians should relax on their principles and accept realpolitics, become a part of the statist machine to make tiny changes in the system, then I doubt a strong alliance is likely or desirable by each group. If liberatianism is accepted in spirit but is thought of as literally naive, then we have a problem, because libertarianism is not about posturing, satifying people's desire for freedom with words, but acting pragmatically just to be a part of the power structure. There may be moderate Republicans who want to use libertarians this way, to appear classically liberal, then, to act as a statist, but it's not what libertarians will any longer accept, if I read the movement correctly.

We're in a political climate among the private sector that respects those who walk like they talk, and disrespects political manipulation as usual. I would hope the moderates want to join the libertarian movement -- we need all the help we can get -- but they can't fake it for votes.

Carrots didn't work, so get out the sticks

The difference between liberals and progressives, according to David Sirota, is the difference between "using taxpayer money to help better society" and a "focus on using government power to make large institutions play by a set of rules".  

Sirota goes on:

To put it in more concrete terms - a liberal solution to some of our current problems with high energy costs would be to increase funding for programs like the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). A more "progressive" solution would be to increase LIHEAP but also crack down on price gouging and pass laws better-regulating the oil industry's profiteering and market manipulation tactics. A liberal policy towards prescription drugs is one that would throw a lot of taxpayer cash at the pharmaceutical industry to get them to provide medicine to the poor; A progressive prescription drug policy would be one that centered around price regulations and bulk purchasing in order to force down the actual cost of medicine in America (much of which was originally developed with taxpayer R&D money).

Sirota is tired of carrots, he wants to beat capitalists with a big stick.

Let's be clear - most progressives are also liberals, and liberal goals in better funding America's social safety net are noble and critical. It's the other direction that's the problem. Many of today's liberals are not fully comfortable with progressivism as defined in these terms. Many of today's Democratic politicians, for instance, are simply not comfortable taking a more confrontational posture towards large economic institutions (many of whom fund their campaigns) - institutions that regularly take a confrontational posture towards America's middle-class.

In other words, industry must pay. Industry must be controlled by the state so it's fair to all people according to the statists in control. Read the whole article and you realize where the progressives stand in relation to modern liberals. Sirota suggests that liberals have influenced Obama to take a more carrot-like approach, but it's obvious that Obama has visions of a more progressive push -- he has stated that not all the progressive agenda can be done at once -- it will take incremental steps. Sirota, and prgressives like him, are impatient -- they believe the liberal pansy approach of bribing industry with carrots, in other words, applying corporate welware, is too beneficial to the rent-seeking, scumbag, "capitalists", and that now is the time to make them do what government wants them to do. I agree with Sirota regarding the corporate welfare -- end it -- but after that, Sirota and I are worlds apart.

But how far apart are the liberals and progressives? How far apart are the moderates and liberals?

It's been my contention for quite some time that companies seeking government favor are dancing with the devil and that it's only a matter of time before government turns on the companies and renders them lackeys for the state. Despite Obama's posture as a liberal, even a moderate in the eyes of some starstruck supporters who are having difficulty accepting reality, he's a progressive. But Obama is not the problem -- every president will do what is politically expedient to maintain power. Our problem in America goes way beyond Obama -- our problem is creeping progressivism -- the new age socialism.

It's unclear at this point whether liberals will resist the progressive goals of outright control over the free market, and instead maintain their carrott/corporate welfare approach. In many ways Obama has been acting as both liberal and progressive -- but with his administration's favoritism toward Goldman Sachs, that might just be plain old cronyism granted to his financial gurus -- there was really no liberal goal of social change involved with bailing out Goldman Sachs. The stimulus could be said to be a liberal scheme to help middle class workers, and in the process offer carrots to some businesses in exchange for cooperation.

We'll have to see what regulations are in the cap and trade legislation, but it appears to be a progressive plan to get the camel's nose in the tent, just like the bailout of GM. With regulations being planned for energy, environmental concerns, the automakers and the financial industry, we begin to see the progressives' plan unfold. Sticks are handed out to regulators and czars. The free market will be beat into shape.

It remains to be seen if the moderates are content trying to manage the growth of statism or whether they will attempt to resist it by joining the conservative/libertarian effort. Liberals are in a precarious position, and in many ways, I include the moderates among the liberals, because the difference between the two is negligible. Most moderates have been okay with liberal use of tax payer money to influence companies to work toward the greater good -- they just don't want to go too far in debt.  

Progressives aren't concerned with debt, nor are they concerned with the free market -- progressives are interested in controling production and economic activity. If moderates/liberals continue to appease progressives, we're in for economic ruin and a great loss of liberty, yet, politically, the moderates/liberals can't find a way to join forces with the conservatives/libertarians. The political divisions are favoring the progressives, as the moderates/liberals vacillate between the poles of conservativism/libertarianism and progressivism.

The limited government conservatives and the libertarians don't agree on social concerns, but they are united in resistance to statism. The moderates and liberals don't agree on all social or fiscal issues, but they are united against the limited government conservatives and libertarians. The questions for the moderates and liberals is -- Will they fight progressivism? Will they uphold classical liberal principles? Will they allow capitalism to be destroyed? Will their disdain for the conservative base override their reason, principles and common sense, pushing them into the progressive movement, brandishing sticks to beat down a free nation? 

David Sirota ends with:

The "free market" conservatives have so dominated the political debate over the last two decades that our side seems only comfortable proposing to pay off different economic players, instead of forcing those players to behave themselves. It's time for that to change. The government has a job to play in protecting Americans from being ripped off, and that doesn't mean just handing the economic bullies a bribe. It means pushing back - hard.

More on Moderates

I've said some unpleasant things about moderates, especially moderate politicians and pundits. This doesn't mean I have anything against the concept of moderation, nor do I think all moderate human beings are squishes. Many people moderate their drinking, shopping, emotional responses, sexual conduct, their time spent working, their gambling in places like Vegas, their food consumption, etc., and this is admirable -- however, I'm not convinced the virtue is transferable, necessarily, to politics.

The problem I have with the Thomas Dewey-like moderates is that they are okay with government intervention as long as it's paid for. The term "moderate", in politics, is troublesome -- some moderate Republicans even refer to their political designation as "progressive" Republican. Is this a Teddy Roosevelt progressivism? I also wonder what is the difference between moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans, and if "progressive" is thrown into the mix, the lines are blurred to the point of being senseless.

I often hear pundits say that moderate Democrats are separating themselves from liberals on a given issue -- if the moderate Democrats are not liberal then this also begs the question -- what makes them different from the moderate Republicans? Does it all boil down to how much debt is acceptable? In other words, is statism acceptable to moderate Republicans, moderate Democrats, liberals and progressives with the only difference being how much statism and debt each group is willing to accept? I suppose, if this is true, that at some point a line is drawn separating the moderate Republicans from the Democrats, therfore distinguishing which party the moderates fall within. We know that the liberals and progressives fall within the Democrat Party, but the line is blurred with moderates from each party.

But even this is not clear, because Republican moderates also claim to be fiscally conservative and socially liberal, so which really defines them, if they accept that a certain amount of statism is acceptable? Don't moderate Democrats claim the same thing -- that they are fiscally conservative and socially liberal? Is it really just a matter of degree? This doesn't seem to be a big enough difference to justify different party designations, because even within the Democrat Party there are disagreements among moderates over how much government intervention is acceptable, so Republican moderates, like Arlen Specter used to be, could fit right in, just as Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and others could blend right in. It appears the Blue Dog Democrats and the Republican moderates are all in the same political group with marginal disagreements over how much statism is acceptable. The particular local issues are not that important when looking at the difference between parties -- here, I'm more concerned with political philosophy in a broader sense, as between statist and anti-statist.

As a libertarian-leaning thinker, I can understand fiscal conservatism and social liberalism, but where I separate from the moderates, and the liberals and progressives, is their willingness to use government intervention in the economy and for the greater good of society, especially after the performance of the state since the turn of the 20th century. Moderates aren't working for a limited government and private realm solutions to social problems, and they appear to see the Constitution as fluid according to the needs of the time. So, who is left to defend the classical liberal principles on which America was founded, or have we moved past our beginning into a more global political philosophy, or anti-philosophy, of socialization and internationalism?

Most libertarians still uphold the classical liberal principles of limited government, individual rights, charity, and self-determination, and the conservative movement is presently re-embracing these principles, although many in the base have always embraced these principles, they've just been too willing to use statsism to achieve socially conservative ends, and the conservative choice of Bush in 2000 showed a statist weakness in the Republican Party.

The moderates might be right when they say that if the Republican Party is to re-gain power it will require moderate support, but what good is the Republican Party in power if it advances statism? The Democrats are doing a better job of advancing statism, if that is the goal -- the Democrats just need to get spending under control, and the moderates in the Democrat Party are working on that -- the Republican moderates can join them and give them more fiscally conservative firepower. The question is who is going to fight against statism? Are the libertarians and conservatives enough? Will the libertarians and conservatives split over social issues? Is the independent movement a new, anti-statist, political formation?  

Next, as a follow-up, I'll write about the concerns I have surrounding the liberal/progressive definitions. The current babble regarding political designations is simply too confusing.

Moderates haven't learned anything from the independent movement

The moderate spin this morning is that conservatives shouldn't have messed with NY-23 and that Scozzafava was the perfect candidate for that district -- even after she endorsed the Democrat. What can you say?

 

Moderates are hopeless. I don't see how this split is going to be resolved, because the conservative movement is actually only a part of a much larger movement of independents who are a diverse lot -- they just don't like progressivism. The simpletons who claim there is no such thing as independents are unable to grasp the new shift in the political landscape -- they still insist on claiming that independents are either Republicans or Democrats posturing, but still loyal to their party.

 

We will soon see to what degree the independent movement has evolved, and how it will not only affect the Republicans, but it will also divide the Democrats. There are moderate Democrats just as squishy as the Republican moderates, and the hardline progressives are already threatening to punish their squishiness, but you will also see Democrats who begin siding with the independent movement. The independent movement is separating from both parties, and partisans can't understand this because they are so accustomed to thinking in the mindset of the two party system. No one entrenched in the two-party system can imagine a true independent movement, but it's a reality, and it's growing daily.